U.N. Body Adopts Report for Free Emigration; Soviet Bloc Votes ‘no’

April 5, 1963

GENEVA (Apr. 4)

A report granting to all persons in any country the right of emigration–a principle consistently opposed by the Soviet Union because the USSR had been singled out as a power forbidding such emigration to Russian Jews–was adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, at a session here last night. The vote was 15-3. The delegations from the Soviet Union, the Ukraine and Poland voted against the resolution adopting the report.

The Commission had under consideration a report submitted last January by Judge Jose D. Ingles, of the Philippines, which had been adopted by the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, granting to all persons the right to leave their own country or return to their own country. During the hot debate on the report before the Subcommission, in New York, in January, heavy criticism was leveled against the USSR for banning the emigration of Jews from the USSR, and note was taken of the fact that Jews were not even allowed to go to Israel for purposes of family reunification.

When the Ingles report came to the full Commission, last night, the Soviet delegate attacked the study, declaring that the right to leave a country “is not an important issue.” Against the Communist opposition, however, the Commission voted to request the Secretary-General of the United Nations to distribute the Ingles report widely.

On the issue of drafting a UN Declaration against religious intolerance, the Commission postponed action, voting 16-0 to give that subject “priority” at its next session, a year from now.